Naming Wonderland
by TheWheelWeaves
Summary: Rose Tyler falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland where she is met by many interesting people who, she discovers, it is her responsibility to save. An all-Doctor x Rose, Alice In Wonderland AU. Written as a Secret Santa gift for BubblyGal92.
1. Chapter 1

**Dearest readers,**

**Welcome, once again, to a new story by me. This is a bunny I've had hopping about my head for months now, and receiving the incomparable BubblyGal92's Secret Santa request simply gave me an opportunity to write it.**

**This is the Alice In Wonderland, Doctor x Rose AU that I've been talking about for half an age. It will be an all-Doctor and Rose story. I do not yet know my update schedule for it just yet, but I do hope that you enjoy, even as it is updated.**

**Merry Christmas, to the brilliant BubblyGal92, and if you haven't read her stories, please go do that as soon as possible, they are pure brilliance.**

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><p>Some things are, simply put, impossible. Two metre by two metre wooden boxes do not have larger dimensions once one gets inside of them. Shop girls who were raise on the council estates never save the world. Plastic mannequins do not come to life and chase one through the basement of Henrick's Department Store. It is impossible.<p>

The fact that it was impossible for it to be happening was of little comfort to Rose Tyler as she ran from the jerking and stumbling creatures. She was lucky they were slow and seemed to have almost no sense of direction- they kept knocking into furniture and walls as they went- but they had chased her into a part of the Henrick's basement she'd never been before.

"Stairs, stairs, stairs," she muttered, continuing to run through the old merchandise and apparently unused offices and storerooms.

A crash from behind her made her jump. Another dummy was struggling from behind a rack of dresses that might have been in fashion 20 years ago.

"Damn," she said, and took off again.

She felt like she must be going in circles, but she could not find the stairs or the lift to get her out of the madness so, when her lungs were burning from running and the stitch in her side felt like a knife between her ribs, she chose a door at random and ducked into it only to nearly fall into blackness.

"Stairs," she said quietly, looking down the dark steps into what appeared to be another sub-basement. "Going the wrong way, obviously. Careful what you wish for, I suppose."

She held the handle of the door to keep it shut, just in case one of the dummies got clever and tried to open it and continue to chase her, but nothing happened. Nothing except some crashing and thumping outside the door.

When things had quieted, Rose pushed on the door only to find that something was blocking her from opening it.

"Naturally… because this day wasn't fun enough," she muttered, irritated.

She glanced behind herself to see the stairs that led into darkness.

"Let's shed some light on the subject," she said, pulling out her key ring and the small LED light that hung from it and shining it around herself.

It was a nice little thing for if she got home after dark and was having trouble getting her key in the door, but it really wasn't intended to be a flashlight. She was hoping to use it to find an actual light switch and, miracle of miracles, she found one.

Once the flickering fluorescent lights were on, the staircase became much less ominous, leading now not into darkness, but into another storage area full of cardboard boxes and old furniture.

Rose reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around warily, but there appeared to be no mannequins in this storeroom.

"Students," she said to herself as she walked the perimeter of the room, hoping to find another staircase back up into the shop. "It's always students when something stupid like that happens. Hope they get arrested for this."

Around the entire room she walked, but there were no doors to be found until she reached the other side of the staircase.

It was a blue, wooden door, but the plaque on the side said "Stairs: Roof Access."

Rose frowned at the door. "That can't have been there before, there's no way I'd have missed it. What's going on here?"

She turned to look around herself again, glaring suspiciously into corners, but the room was as devoid of life as it had been the first time around.

Rose shook her head. "Not like someone being down here could make a door appear," she told herself, firmly. "Don't be an idiot."

She reached out to try the door, only to find it locked.

She sighed at pulled two bobby pins from her hair and knelt before the lock to begin fiddling with it. If nothing else positive had come from her relationship with Jimmy Stone (and it really hadn't) she'd at least learned how to pick a lock.

"What on earth or any other planet do you think you're doing? Stop that!"

Rose jumped and dropped both hairpins. She spun to face her assailant, only to find an older man with an aristocratic face, white hair slicked straight back from his forehead, and the most peculiar outfit. He was wearing yellow and black checked trousers, braces, and a frock coat, the lapels of which he held in his hands as he looked down his nose at her.

"Who the 'ell are you, and how did you get down here?" Rose shouted.

The man took a step back from the force of her fury.

"Language, young lady," he said, primly.

Rose nearly growled. "Don't you tell me to watch my language. How did you get down here? The door at the top of the stairs is blocked. Did you get it open?"

The man sniffed. "Certainly not. I have been here the whole time."

"No you haven't," Rose said, shaking her head. "I'd have seen you."

"Oh would you?" he asked, all false-shock and barely-concealed skepticism. "Didn't notice my door, now did you?"

"Well… no, I guess not, but…. wait." Rose frowned. "_Your_ door?"

"Quite right, so you didn't notice her sitting there, large as life, but you think you'd have noticed me?" He shook his head. "Humans," he snorted derisively.

"Humans?" Rose asked.

"And then you go poking around in her- dreadfully invasive! Dreadfully rude!" he continued, getting into a good rant now, arms waving and voice modulating. "What have you to say for yourself?" He turned his sharp, blue eyes on Rose again.

"I… er… I'm very sorry?" Rose said, entirely confused. "I should have considered the door's feelings before trying to pick the lock?"

The old man nodded sharply, then crossed his arms and glared at Rose again.

"But wait," she said, the absurdity of the situation finally catching up with her. "What would you have me do, precisely? I've got to get out of here, I don't fancy staying here with you until I die of hunger."

The man rolled his eyes. "What do they teach these days? If you want something, you should _ask _for it."

"Ask?" Rose said, blankly.

"Yes," he said, as though she were dribbling on her shirt.

"Ask the door?"

"Yes."

"To let me through."

"You're hardly one of the more clever humans, are you?"

"I've gone mad, haven't I?" Rose asked, directing the question halfway to the old man standing before her and halfway to the universe as a whole. "This bloody job has finally sent me 'round the twist, hasn't it?"

"I would posit that you are finally seeing things as they actually are, but you are welcome to disagree. You would be wrong, however."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Okay then, ask the door to let me through?"

"I'd recommend starting with an apology. You were rather horribly rude."

Rose shook her head, but turned to the door. "Er… hello," she said. "Look, I'm really sorry about, you know, trying to pick your lock. I guess that can't be very comfortable, now that I think about it. Should have given a warning first or, you know, warmed up my hairpins, like the doctor does."

Rose did not notice the man behind her give a small jump when she mentioned her physician.

"Anyway, I'd really, really like to get out of here and go home. I was supposed to be off work an hour ago, and now I'm going to have missed the last bus, so it'll be a walk and, honestly, if you could let me through so I can, I'd be eternally grateful. Like I say, I really didn't realize it was important to ask doors to let you through them, but I'll be sure to do it in the future, yeah? So, could we call it pax?"

Rose reached out her hand for the nob of the door and, for some reason, she felt like she was shaking hands with a living entity. Some small, optimistic, even childlike part of her mind insisted that the door would now be unlocked.

Until she tried the handle and found that it wouldn't turn.

"Yeah, it's still locked," she said, turning to the old man.

"Well of course it is," he said, as though she were an idiot. "You haven't got the key."

Rose could take no more. She sat on the ground, leaned her head back to the door and started to laugh.

After several long moments, it passed, and Rose looked up to see the old man watching her with a peculiar expression on his face.

"What?" she asked with a grin, her tongue tucked into the corner of her mouth.

"You're not crying."

"No, of course I'm not crying. What good would crying do me?"

"They usually cry at this point," he said.

Rose frowned again, the last traces of her laughter slipping from her face. "They? Is this something you do regularly then? Get a bunch of nutters to dress as shop window dummies and chase some girl down into your lair and trap her?" She scrambled up and backed away from him.

"Oh don't be ridiculous," the man said, rolling his eyes again.

"Nothing ridiculous about it, tell me who or what you are!" she yelled, still backing away.

"I'm the door."

Rose stopped and blinked at him. "You're… what? But what about… why didn't you have me apologize to you?"

"Well, she's a door, and she's the one you violated, but the door, the passageway that comes after, that's me. Entrance to a new place, that's what I do and what I am."

"You're the door?"

The man smiled and took a step closer to her. He took her hand. "Look closely. Can you see it?"

Rose looked, pouring all her concentration into doing so. For one moment, the man before her was simply the man she had seen at the beginning and then, in a rush, his features changed- hair, eyes, nose, mouth, everything twisting and morphing, sometimes brown curls, sometimes shining green, resting finally on silver hair and piercing grey eyes before he became something else entirely.

"You're a door," Rose said, shaking her head and blinking hard. "You're also-"

The old man dropped her hand suddenly, and it was as though everything she had seen flew out of her head, leaving her dizzy and confused. The only thing she could recall was that, yes, this man was a door, and that she could trust him.

"What's your name?" he asked, and for the first time his voice was not condescending.

"Rose," she said, weakly. "Rose Tyler."

"Alice couldn't do it, but maybe Rose can," he murmured, too low for Rose to hear. "Through that door there's one of two things, and you won't know which it is until you open it, Rose, Rose Tyler," he said, his voice very serious. "I've the key to get you through it and it might open to the stairs which will take you back out into London and your life filled with work and food and sleep."

"Beans on toast and telly in the evenings," Rose murmured.

"Precisely. But there's another option. Something much grander than that."

Rose held her breath. It seemed that her entire life may have been leading up to that moment- the moment where she could be more than a mostly-uneducated shop girl. If anyone could give that to her, it seemed that this man could.

"There's an entire world to explore, just for you. So what do you say? Beans on toast, or a whole world of your own?"

Rose stood for a long moment. She felt as though she were teetering on the edge of the abyss- on one side was everything that she knew- London and Henrick's and chips and telly. On the other side was an adventure- madness and chaos and the unknown. For a long moment, she stared into the man's sharp blue eyes and hung clung to that razor's edge.

Then she broke the eye-contact and looked down at the toes of her trainers.

"Yeah, I can't. I've got a life here, you know? And that's just too… it's too much. Too weird. And you… I don't even know what you are. So no. Sorry, but I should be getting home."

"Oh," he said, softly. "Oh alright then. That's… that's fine. Good. Yes." He nodded sharply and reached into his coat for a long, slim, silver tube with a blinking yellow light on the end and pointed it at the door where it gave a warble just before the latch clicked.

"What's that then?" Rose asked, looking at the device in his hand.

"The key, obviously," he said with a touch of the bite he'd originally had back in his voice.

"Doesn't look like any key I've ever seen," she said, which caused him to roll his eyes.

"And, naturally, because it doesn't look like something you've seen before, it must be wrong. Do I look like any door you've ever seen before?"

"Well… no, I suppose not."

He sniffed. "You suppose not. You humans. Such tiny minds and such tiny perceptions and yet your egos know no bounds. Go on then, Rose Tyler. Back to your life then."

Rose crossed to the door and placed a hand on it. "Thank you, door, for letting me go home," she murmured to it.

She reached for the handle but, just before she touched it, the old man- the door- spoke again.

"It needs saving, that world," he said, suddenly, "and I think you could do it. If you went, you could save us all."

Rose hesitated, biting her lip. She liked the funny old door, in spite of how rude he had been to her, and she had always wanted an adventure. And really, what did she have waiting for her at home, in the end?

"I… I don't know," she said, quietly, not looking around at him. "I… suppose-"

Before she could make up her mind, however, the door in front of her opened and she seemed to pitch forward and she fell into the darkness. Down the rabbit hole. Into the vortex.

Down she fell until she landed in the ocean.


	2. Chapter 2

**As I mentioned last week, I don't know the update schedule for this one. I may get several chapters written this week and continue to update weekly, but I sincerely doubt it.**

**I do know what will happen in this story, and I promise that it will not be abandoned! That said, my head has not been a fun place to live recently, so writing is happening much slower than I wish it were.**

**All the best Christmas wishes to the fabulous BubblyGal92, because this one's for her!**

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><p>Rose plunged under the waves with a crash.<p>

In the small part of her mind not taken up with trying to determine which way was up so that she could claw her way back to air, she noted that the water was warm and sweet.

She kicked her sodden-jean-clad legs and swept her arms in the direction that she had finally decided must be up and, after only a moment, her head popped out of the water to a stormy grey sky and a pulsing grey sea.

"That right old bast-" she started to say and then, as though the entire world were trying to censor her, she was pushed underwater again by a great wave.

This time, when she kicked her way back to the surface, she spat a fountain of water out with her first breath.

"I should get to call him what I like. He didn't give me a choice! Save the world, Rose, no matter that it's not my world or my responsibility, eh?"

The sea and sky held no sympathy.

Rose sighed. It wasn't like she was going to refuse him anyway though, was it? Not once he'd told her the world was hers to save. She had to try, of course… anyone would, wouldn't they?"

"Can't save the world from the middle of the ocean," Rose said to no one, and set of to swim, hoping that she would make it to land before her strength gave out.

"Do you know you're swimming away from the shore?"

The voice came after Rose had been swimming for about 10 minutes and she was so shocked that she breathed in a great lungful of water. She choked and began coughing, fighting to keep her head above water, even as she could hardly breathe.

Just as she feared she would sink beneath the surface for the last time, her hand was grabbed and she was pulled to the edge of some sort of craft, where she clung as she continued to cough the water from her lungs.

When she was finally able to breathe again, she clung to the edge of whatever boat she'd been guided to and panted for a long moment. As she did, she noted that the craft wasn't made of wood- it actually seemed more like a canoe as it was made of tight-woven cloth. When she'd finally caught her breath she blinked her eyes open to find bright pink cloth under her hands and a slightly daft face looking at her in concern.

"Are you alright?" the face asked.

"Yeah," she gasped, "yeah, you startled me and I-" Rose stopped and finally took in her surroundings. "Are you sailing the ocean in an umbrella?"

The peculiar-looking man grinned, an expression which lit up his odd face, even as it made it that much more daft.

"It's the only way to travel, don't you know?"

"Oh, naturally," she said with a grin, "give up my Oyster Card for a brolly any day. Would it be too much to ask to join you?"

"Oh… well I suppose," he said, sounding surprised.

Rose clambered into the brolly without his help, finding it a bit more difficult than hoisting one's self out of the community swimming pool, but not much. For an umbrella, it seemed fairly steady on the water, not tipping with her weight, but remaining steady, even as she struggled. The odd-looking man just watched her until she rolled into the curved bottom of the brolly, where she found no ribs, just a handle jutting out from the centre like a mast. The top (the handle, she supposed, were the wielder a giant) was in the shape of an enormous question mark.

She pushed herself up and leaned against the centre mast, finally getting a good look at the captain of her new (very odd) vessel.

He looked to be middle-aged with a mop of lank, black hair covered by a shabby top hat and he wore a coat that looked like it might be either fur or feathers, it was hard to determine. He fingered a wooden recorder in his slim hands as though he had forgotten it was there, and he scowled at her.

She wasn't sure he was intending to scowl- his face seemed to fall into those lines naturally, so he might simply have been looking at her.

"Who are you?" he asked, without preamble.

"Rose Tyler, and who are you?"

"Rose Tyler," he said, rolling the name about on his tongue like wine. "That's not a species of rose that I've ever heard of before. And you don't look much like any Rose I've ever seen, except for your colouring. Pink and yellow are lovely colours of roses." He suddenly blushed and looked away.

"Right… I'm not _a_ rose, I'm just Rose. It's a name. What's yours?"

He turned back to her and looked for a very long moment into her eyes. The creases around his mouth seemed to deepen as he looked at her, as though he were in pain.

"They call me the Dodo," he said after a long moment,

"That's not very nice of them!"

For a moment, the Dodo looked at her in confusion, but then his face cleared and he grinned that mad, funny sort of grin that he had.

"Oh no, they don't intend to be cruel, it's simply who I am, can't you see?"

He reached his hand down to take hers and the moment they touched, Rose could see everything- she could see the man before her as a roundish, flightless bird. She could, also, see nearly a dozen other face including…

Rose gasped and dropped his hand and the Dodo stood looking at her for a moment in surprise.

"You-you're-but," Rose stammered, but, as before, since they had stopped touching, the memories of what she had seen bled away like water in cupped hands leaving her only with the impression that the man before her was a bird, and that he could be trusted.

"Why are you here, Rose Tyler?" the Dodo asked. He treated her name differently this time- a gentle caress of the tongue, like a kiss, rather than a roll across it as though tasting it.

"I… er… the Door. He said that I could save the world."

"Yes," the Dodo murmured, continuing to look at her with ageless eyes. "I very much think you might be able to."

After a moment where the man who was actually a bird continued to look at her as though she were the most interesting thing in the world, he suddenly straightened.

"Well, you can't save the world from the middle of the ocean, now can you? We must get you to shore! Lucky I happened upon you, you might have swum off the edge of the world!"

"Er… right," Rose said, looking around. "So where is the land, then? I can't see anything." She looked around herself to find that she was alone in the bowl of the umbrella. There was an odd humming noise above her, however, so she looked up to find the Dodo perched on the question-mark handle of the brolly, peering exaggeratedly in all directions.

"That way," he announced, and then plopped himself down on the curve of the handle and pulled out a wooden recorder from somewhere in the depths of his furry, feathery coat.

Rose smiled as he began to play a lilting, dancing tune. It made her want to tap her feet, lift up her skirts, and raise her knees in time, though she wasn't wearing skirts, and wasn't sure of the proper dance to a tune like that. She leaned back against the centre mast and just listened as the umbrella swayed underneath her.

Quicker than it should have been, considering land had been nowhere to see, Rose began hearing the call of seabirds and the crash of breakers on the shore. She opened her eyes to find that they were, indeed, approaching the shore where there was a great bonfire around which several people ran.

She leaned forward on the front of the umbrella to watch them, and it seemed that they would run endlessly, never tiring, never going anywhere.

"Well, they won't," the Dodo said from beside her, making Rose jump.

"Won't what?"

"Go anywhere- it's a caucus race! They'll run and run and never get anywhere, wasting a great deal of energy and never giving up."

Rose frowned. "But that's mad!"

The Dodo grinned. "It is, isn't it?"

Rose frowned and turned back to the people running on the beach. There was a wavy-haired boy in a kilt, a brown-haired woman in a crop-top and shorts, another dark-haired, but smaller, woman in a minidress, and a red-haired woman in a blue top and jeans.

"Why don't they find somewhere else? Run to something else?" Rose asked, beginning to feel sad, even as she watched them.

"Because they can't remember, any of them. They can't remember where they came from or where they're going, or anything but the race. They don't even remember that there is anything else but to run in a circle endlessly."

"That's ghastly."

The Dodo nodded gravely.

"The Door… he wants me to save this place. Is that what I have to do? Get them out of the caucus race?"

The Dodo was silent for a moment. "I honestly don't know. We've never been saved before. Maybe when you've done it, you'll remember, but I'm not sure."

"Do you know what I have to do?" Rose asked.

"Yes. And you will as well, when the time comes. I think you must first meet a few people." Rose looked at the runners on the shore, but the Dodo shook his head. "Not them. Less-friendly than them. I think that you shall, first, have to meet the Caterpillar."

The umbrella began drifting toward an inlet off of the beach where the runners circled and, eventually, bumped onto the shore.

"Go on then, Rose Tyler. Go find the Caterpillar," the Dodo said as Rose clambered out of the umbrella boat and onto the pebbled shore.

"Oh! But..." Rose said, turning back to him. She'd expected him to come with her and introduce her to the Caterpillar, or at least tell her how to get there, but he was already gone, his umbrella too far out to sea to have actually drifted there, and Rose could see him, sitting on top of that question-mark handle, playing his recorder.

She turned her back on the sea and found a path waiting for her that she could have sworn hadn't been there when she had stepped off the umbrella the first time.

"How very… curious," Rose said as she placed her trainer-clad foot on the path. "Let's see where I go next."


End file.
